Kurds retake Iraq's main dam from Islamic State

Kurds retake Iraq's main dam from Islamic State

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters drive trucks as they head to the Mosul dam on the Tigris river that they recaptured from Islamic State militants.

AL-QOSH, Iraq — Iraqi Kurdish fighters backed by US warplanes retook the country's largest dam from jihadists on Sunday, as Sunni Arab tribesmen and security forces fought the militants west of Baghdad.

The recapture of Mosul dam marks the biggest prize yet clawed back from Islamic State (IS) jihadists since they launched a major offensive in northern Iraq in early June, sweeping Iraqi security forces aside.

IS militants, who have declared a "caliphate" straddling vast areas of Iraq and Syria, also came under air attack in their Syrian stronghold of Raqa on Sunday, a monitoring group said.

Two months of violence have brought Iraq to the brink of breakup, and world powers relieved by the exit of divisive premier Nuri al-Maliki are sending aid to the hundreds of thousands who have fled their homes as well as arms to the Kurdish peshmerga forces.

Buoyed by the airstrikes US President Barack Obama ordered last week, Kurdish forces are fighting to win back ground they had lost since the start of August, when the jihadists went back on the offensive north, east and west of the city of Mosul, capturing the dam on Aug. 7.

"Mosul Dam was liberated completely," Ali Awni, an official from Iraq's main Kurdish party, told AFP, a statement also confirmed by another party official and a Kurdish security forces officer.

A senior Iraqi army officer told AFP that while the fighting had ended, some areas around the dam were still inaccessible due to bombs planted by the militants.

The dam breakthrough came after US warplanes and drones pummeled the militants fighting against the Kurdish advance on Saturday and again on Sunday.

The US Central Command reported that the military had carried out 14 airstrikes Sunday near the dam, which, located on the Tigris river, provides electricity and irrigation water for farming to much of the region.

CENTCOM said the strikes destroyed 10 IS armed vehicles, seven IS Humvees, two armored personnel carriers and one IS checkpoint.

In Syria's Raqa, the Syrian air force carried out 16 raids on the city of Raqa and several more on the town of Tabqa in Raqa province, killing at least 31 jihadists and eight civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The air strikes were the "most intensive" against the IS since the jihadists joined the anti-regime revolt in that country in spring 2013, the Observatory said.

"The regime wants to show the Americans that it is also capable of striking the IS," said the Britain-based group's director, Rami Abdel Rahman.

Anbar fightback

On another battlefront, security forces backed by Sunni Arab tribal militia made gains against the jihadists in Iraq's Anbar province, west of the provincial capital Ramadi, police said.

Fighting was also taking place near the strategic Euphrates Valley town of Haditha, located near another important dam, police Staff Maj. Gen. Ahmed Sadag said.

The rallying of more than two dozen Sunni tribes to the government side on Friday marked a potential turning point in the fightback against the jihadists and their allies.

The militants were able to sweep through the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in June, encountering little effective resistance, and Iraqi federal security forces have yet to make significant headway in regaining ground.

Anbar was the birthplace of the Sahwa, or Awakening, movement of Sunni tribes that from late 2006 sided with US forces against their co-religionists in Al Qaeda, helping turn the tide against that insurgency.

Minorities targeted

In the north, members of minority groups including the Yazidis, Christians, Shabak and Turkmen, remain under threat of kidnapping or death at the hands of the jihadists.

On Friday, IS fighters killed around 80 Yazidi Kurds in the village of Kocho near the northwestern town of Sinjar, Kurdish officials said.

The jihadist' storming of Sinjar on August 3 sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing onto Mount Sinjar, prompting an international aid operation and helping to trigger the launch of US airstrikes.

The Yazidis' non-Muslim faith is anathema to the Sunni extremists of IS.

Human rights groups and residents say IS fighters have been demanding that religious minorities in the Mosul region either convert or leave, unleashing violent reprisals on any who refuse.

Amnesty International, which has been documenting mass abductions in the Sinjar area, says IS kidnapped thousands of Yazidis in this month's offensive.

Tens of thousands have fled, most of them seeking refuge in areas of northern Iraq under Kurdish control, or in neighboring Syria.